I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the Walt Disney Company recently, and specifically the troubled period of the late 1970s and early 1980s, where the studio side of the business was throwing a bunch of things at the wall to see if anything could stick. This was the era that preceded - and precipitated - Michael Eisner’s arrival at the company, and the ensuing renaissance (in pretty much every area) that he ushered in.
I’m fascinated by the “darker” or more challenging films the studio produced during this time, films that were clearly gambles and represented Disney going way outside its comfort zone:
THE BLACK HOLE (1979)
THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS (1980)
DRAGONSLAYER (1981)
TRON (1982)
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (1983)
THE BLACK CAULDRON (1985)
RETURN TO OZ (1985)
When you look at that, it’s a really ambitious slate. This was not Disney playing it safe in any way. This was Disney attempting to make riskier films that, though certainly family friendly, were attempting to appeal to a wider audience. It’s no surprise that none of these films were breakout hits, but I actually think most of those ended up being good movies, and something about this lineup springing out of one of the studio’s most difficult periods I find really interesting. These are films I could have imagined Walt Disney himself signing off on, as I think he very clearly had an interest in darker material and even the macabre.
What do any of you think of these films? Or this particular moment in Disney’s history, which is one of its most consequential? Also, even setting aside this particular slate, what are some of your favorite, most potent “dark” moments from the entire Disney movie catalog?
AI was genuinely surprised to see complaints about The Black Cauldron’s appearance on a blogger’s fantasy film best-of list in another recent thread. It was the only Disney picture I’ve bothered to see twice during its original theatrical run, unless you count the most recent Star Wars installment. 1985 me ate that movie up.
These were all during my childhood, so I remember them fairly well I recall LOVING Dragonslayer and Something Wicked This Way Comes 20-plus years ago. Dragonslayer, especially. I had dreams about that one for a while. I also remember seeing The Black Hole at 4 years old. My only memories of the film are the cute big-eyed robot, the awesome (if you’re a 4 year old) special fx, and my uncle throwing up popcorn in the car after.
Mom and I went to see The Black Cauldron, but we walked into the wrong theater and ended up watching Silverado instead. I recall thinking that was a good choice.
I adore Return To Oz. Everyone else can keep the first movie. Just leave me here with my electroshock treatments, scary-ass Nomes rendered in hellish Claymation…
…shit-your-pants-when-they-first-appear Wheelers, and head-swapping Mombi.
Yes, yes, the first one is a classic movie. But the truth is that I felt more emotion for Jack Pumpkinhead as a kid than I did for any of the original trio.
AI vaguely remember seeing “Return to Oz” in the theater when I was a young 'un. I don’t remember it freaking me out, even though I was a ginormous wussy back then, not the fearless bohunk I am today.
It was my favorite animated film for a while when I was a kid, though that likely says more about my tastes than the quality of the movie. I revisited it a few years ago, and was still impressed by many aspects of it, and I give Disney real credit for attempting to create an animated tale with more edge than they usually included.
DRAGONSLAYER seems like a movie Disney has tried to erase from existence. I’m sure the presence of Paramount as their partner and distributor has played a role in that (and I believe Paramount still controls the film), but it’s still too bad. I absolutely love the dragon effects, as well as Alex North’s ultra-dense musical score.
And THE BLACK HOLE’s effects still hold up as well as any from that era. There’s a real artistry and an intricate quality to them.
The ending totally makes the movie! It’s horrifying… and yet gorgeous. John Barry’s score for that sequence is spectacular.
Definitely do it. Even if they’re not all 100% successful, they’re each worth checking out, and each has something unique to offer, especially when taken in the context of what “A Disney Movie” traditionally/stereotypically means.
A[quote name=“Belloq87” url=“/community/t/155794/dark-disney#post_4123873”]Definitely do it. Even if they’re not all 100% successful, they’re each worth checking out, and each has something unique to offer, especially when taken in the context of what “A Disney Movie” traditionally/stereotypically means.[/quote]
They’re also all worthwhile examples of the creativity and experimentation of 80’s genre movies, a topic that comes up a lot here.
AOh no, I like The Black Hole a lot. I didn’t mean for my comment about the ending to sound negative because I certainly don’t feel negative about it.
I’ve never liked Tron for some reason. I get the appeal but I’ve tried watching that movie probably 4 or 5 times over the years and always just drift away from it and never finish it. So needless to say I haven’t seen ANY of the sequel..
I’ll be honest… TRON is probably my least favorite movie on that list I posted. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it, but it’s one of those movies that’s better in theory, in abstract, than it is when fully executed. The intention behind it, though, is incredibly ballsy, and I love that about it.
ATRON still amazes me on a conceptual level. An entire village of artificial people who take their virtual existence as real because it’s the only one they know, with a cargo cult relationship with the scientists who created them? And the creators they deify have no idea what the artificial people’s existence might really be like until one of them accidentally descends from his reality into theirs? C’mon, that’s essential viewing, even if it’s just to see how the execution of the idea went.
RETURN TO OZ is a legitimately great fantasy film that is slowly but surely being re-appraised. Walter Murch made the mistake of believing that fifty years was long enough for audiences to be able to tolerate a take on Baum that hewn more closely to the source material. It wears me out that he never directed a second film.
The rest of that line-up consist of varying degrees of interesting failures (artistically as well as commercially) from my perspective, but some of my most adored films are interesting failures and I adore several of these. Of them I have the most fondness for SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, but I can never watch it without seeing a compromised vision and being left with nagging curiosity about what the mythical preview cut was like.
I think the general problem is that Disney genuinely wanted to try new things in theory but ultimately lacked the courage to actually follow through, resulting in sloppy, uncertain movies that are easier to like in terms of their potential than for what they actually are. THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS is the perfect example. The initial idea was for it to be “our THE EXORCIST,” but when they saw the script they commissioned they said, “Well, we didn’t mean that dark” and kept compromising it right down the line.
I think the main reason Murch was able to make the movie he wanted was because he had George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola vouching for him and some well-timed regime changes made it a project the new guard didn’t think enough of to even meddle with by the end - which also led to the marketing being half-assed.
It really is interesting in retrospect that Disney saw the animation landscape as so dire in the late 70s that they thought they’d have to migrate to such drastically different territory. It is my understanding that when Zemeckis made ROGER RABBIT, there was a cattle call for all the displaced animators in order to meet the schedule. With the team re-assembled, they tried another animated feature with THE LITTLE MERMAID, and the Disney Renaissance began. I’ll always have a soft spot for the experimental period that preceded it, though. Great thread!
It’s a testament to the higher-ups involved (both pre- and post-regime change) that the film even got green-lit and released at all (even if, as you say, the actual release was half-assed). Murch’s vision is so wildly divergent from the bright, technicolor exuberance of the original that I have to believe many of the suits were worried. Those first moments when Dorothy finds the crumbling Yellow Brick Road are particularly striking - it’s an overcast, gloomy day, which is obviously thematically appropriate, but it sends a subliminal message to the kids in the audience that all is not well and that dangerous things are around the corner.
I think the cut of SWTWC that we got is still pretty strong, though. Robards and Pryce are absolutely tremendous (their confrontation in the library is electric), and it captures the autumnal feel of the book incredibly well.
I think that’s a fair assessment, even as I probably think the lineup as a whole might be a bit stronger than you might. We have to admire the attempt, anyway, regardless of the qualities of the finished films.
THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS, compromised though it may be (and it certainly is, because the original ending is something else), still has a creepy power to it. It was my first exposure to “the evil presence is represented by subjective POV shots,” as I hadn’t seen things like HALLOWEEN or BLACK CHRISTMAS yet, and I think the movie succeeds at conveying an increasingly odd and dire mood. I also love how strange the ritualistic/occultish backstory is.
A[quote name=“Belloq87” url=“/community/t/155794/dark-disney#post_4123919”][QUOTE name=“Fraid uh noman” url=“/community/t/155794/dark-disney#post_4123893”]
I’ve never liked Tron for some reason. I get the appeal but I’ve tried watching that movie probably 4 or 5 times over the years and always just drift away from it and never finish it. So needless to say I haven’t seen ANY of the sequel..[/QUOTE]
I’ll be honest… TRON is probably my least favorite movie on that list I posted. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it, but it’s one of those movies that’s better in theory, in abstract, than it is when fully executed. The intention behind it, though, is incredibly ballsy, and I love that about it.[/quote]
It’s not an unfair take, but as Reasor says, the scope of what’s being attempted is so far beyond the norm for the time and especially for post-Star Wars popcorn sci-fi (was there a pop-sci-fi movie that had anywhere near such a head-trippy premise until The Matrix?) that I can’t even bring myself to care about its shortcomings, real though they are.
I totally get it. For the era, it’s playing with some huge ideas and - mostly - doing it well. The overall aesthetic of the movie, too, was very much something nobody had seen in a movie before.
Dragonslayer is one of the best fantasy movies pretty much ever. It’s actually about something (the death of magic and the sense of sadness and loss around it), the score is phenomenal, and it’s got a cinematic dragon that has still yet to be beaten. All my friends were going nuts over Conan and Excalibur, and while those are great, this right here is my fantasy jam.
Seconded, thirded, and fourthed. I saw DRAGONSLAYER in the theaters when it first came out and was absolutely blown away, and every subsequent viewing has only reinforced its greatness. The dragon has never been topped.
